Minor MLB Transactions: 3/29/16

Padres righty Philip Humber has decided to retire after learning he wouldn’t make the club, A.J. Cassavell of MLB.com tweets. Now 33, Humber was once the third overall pick in the amateur draft, but never was able to consistently deliver results at the MLB level and will end his career with a 5.31 ERA in 371 innings. He last cracked the majors back in 2013 with the Astros. Of course, Humber also twirled an exceedingly rare perfect game for the White Sox in 2012, giving him quite a notable place in the history books.

Shane Robinson has requested and been given his release by the Indians, Ryan Lewis of the Akron Beacon Journal reports on Twitter. Robinson had been on the fringes of the Cleveland outfield competition, but the club was set to go with other options and he exercised the opt-out clause that MLBTR recently reported. The 31-year-old is valued more for his glove than his bat; he owns a .237/.302/.313 batting line in 649 career plate appearances over parts of six seasons.

As expected, Roberto Hernandez has officially exercised his opt-out clause and requested that he be released by the Blue Jays, Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet.ca tweets. The 35-year-old is hopeful of finding a major league opportunity elsewhere after Toronto decided not to add him to the active roster (and take on what would have been a $1.25MM salary). In 84 2/3 innings last year, Hernandez worked to a 4.36 ERA with 4.5 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9.

Lefty Caleb Thielbar is headed to the indy league St. Paul Saints, Seth Stohs of TwinsDaily.com tweets. The former Twins southpaw, who’s just 29, played a bit role in Minnesota’s pen over 2013-14 but only got five innings in the majors last year. He had good run prevention numbers at Triple-A, but uninspiring peripherals may have tamped down interest from major league teams.

Comments

To look at it another way, Nolan Ryan and Pedro Martinez do not need a perfect game to be remembered. In 10 years, Braden and Humber will be in the same category as Len Barker and Don Larsen in that the perfect game will be the only thing remembered about their careers. Well, people might still remember Braden’s tantrum about A Rod too, but you get my point.

The Twins traded Johan Santana for Carlos Gomez, Philip Humber, Kevin Mulvey, and Deolis Guerra. Two years later they swapped Gomez for JJ Hardy, and subsequently swapped Hardy (and Brendan Harris from the Garza-for-Delmon deal) for Jim Hoey and Brett Jacobsen, indirectly to make room for Tsuyoshi Nishioka.

Happy retirement to you, Philip… You got into the annals of history with your perfect game, and were part of a trade for one of the, if not THE best, pitchers in the game. Other than that short run for the Sox, success never really came… but still, you have more to brag about than I ever will.